Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks (traditionally to God) at the close of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. In Canada, it is celebrated on the second Monday in October. In the United Kingdom, Thanksgiving is another name for the Harvest festival, held in churches across the country on a relevant Sunday to mark the end of the local harvest, though it is not thought of as a major event as it is in other parts of the world. This tradition was taken to North America by early settlers, where it became much more important.
The first Official thanksgiving in the US was held in the Virginia Colony on December 4, 1619 near the current site of Berkeley Plantation, where celebrations are held each year in November. The Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. The Massachusetts Bay Colony celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in 1630.
Said William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation:
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their house and dwelling against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned by true reports.
O Lord, with humble hearts we pray
Thy blessing this Thanksgiving Day
And ask that at table place,
Where grateful folk say words of grace,
That Thou will come to share the yield
Thy bounty gave to farm and field.
We pray thy love will bless, O Lord,
Each hearth, each home, each festive board;
And that Thy peace will come to stay
Where candles glow, Thanksgiving Day.
By Brain F. King, from: Ideals
